Crown Heights

Located by Bed-Stuy, Prospect Heights, and Clinton Hill, Crown
Heights, Brooklyn is home to a vibrant West Indian population. Due
to efforts to maintain the traditional look of the original Crown
Heights, the neighborhood consists of mainly characteristic
brownstones and row houses along with a few less ornate, larger
housing complexes in the neighborhood. Those looking to rent an
apartment in the neighborhood will find themselves living in an
extremely dynamic, diverse and increasingly…

Located by Bed-Stuy, Prospect Heights, and Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Brooklyn is home to a vibrant West Indian population. Due to efforts to maintain the traditional look of the original Crown Heights, the neighborhood consists of mainly characteristic brownstones and row houses along with a few less ornate, larger housing complexes in the neighborhood. Those looking to rent an apartment in the neighborhood will find themselves living in an extremely dynamic, diverse and increasingly gentrified community.

Some of the fun activities in this area includes spending time outdoors in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Prospect Park, or Brower Park. There is also the fun West Indian Carnival that happens once a year in early September along with free concerts and other events that happen in the parks during warmer weather.

What’s Here?: Crown Heights is home to a vibrant West Indian population, so visitors or potential residents looking for great authentic Caribbean food are in luck. Nearby Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden offer a bit of peace and quiet in the middle of the borough, or free summer concerts if you choose to stop by Brower Park. Barboncino is the place to go for some of the best sopressata and pizza in Brooklyn, and The Crown Inn boasts a great cocktail menu and a cozy but elegant ambiance for post-work or weekend meetups. The list of hot spots in Crown Heights has spiked in the past few years, and the neighborhood’s bar and restaurant scene is steadily growing; Bar Corvo, named after Crown Heights’ original name, Crow Hill (“corvo” is crow in Italian), is a casual but delightful new restaurant with rustic charm.

Flat or Tall?: Crown Heights residents enjoy living in the area’s characteristic brownstones and rowhouses, left over from its beginnings as a posh residential neighborhood for Manhattan’s growing bourgeois class in the early 1900s. There are also less ornate, larger housing complexes in the neighborhood, but there is a strong preservation effort to maintain the traditional look of the original Crown Heights.

History: Crown Heights saw its first European settlements when New Netherland’s Director-General Peter Stuyvesant and the directors of the Dutch West India Company received the land in the mid-17th century. 200 years later, it was still a neighborhood for the rich, but the population diversified rapidly in the early to mid-20th century, when West Indians and African Americans from the South moved to the area and a large Jewish community arrived as well. Today, it remains a dynamic and diverse, and increasingly gentrified, community with representation from a variety of ethnicities.

Activities: Spend some time outdoors in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Prospect Park, or Brower Park, take children to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum to engage in hands-on learning, browse locally made, eco-friendly and fair trade clothing and goods at the Owl and Thistle General Store, try out a delicious melted meal from the Morris Grilled Cheese truck or a critically-acclaimed (but affordable) bowl of pasta with a wine pairing at Al Di La Trattoria, or check out offbeat art exhibits at Five Myles Gallery.

Check it out: Catch the West Indian Carnival in early September, and spend some time in the parks during the warmer months to take advantage of free concerts and other events.